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Sports Council ‘abandoned governance of OCI’ – Munster

Commenting after the appearance of the Olympic Council of
Ireland (OCI) and Sport Ireland at today’s meeting of the Joint Committee on
Transport, Tourism and Sport, Sinn Féin spokesperson for Sport Imelda Munster
TD has expressed concern that a former Minister for Sport allegedly told representatives
of the Irish Sports Council, which is now called Sport Ireland, ‘to have no
rows’ with the OCI.

Mr Kieran Mulvey, Chairperson of Sport Ireland, also said
today that Pat Hickey, the former OCI President, had had spats with, and had
publicly humiliated, former Ministers and former Taoisigh, which led the Sports
Council to “tread around the OCI with delicate feet”.

Mr Mulvey was answering questions on the Moran report into
the Rio ticketing scandal. When questioned about the poor governance structures
at the OCI Mr Mulvey disclosed that, as governing body, Sport Ireland is tasked
with overseeing both the areas of governance and performance at the OCI. Mr
Mulvey said that because Sport Ireland treaded carefully around the OCI, they
focused on the performance side of their brief, essentially ignoring their
governance role.

Deputy Munster said:

“This is further evidence of the toxic culture at the OCI,
and the dysfunctional relationship between the OCI, its governing body Sport
Ireland, and the Department of Sport.

“It is fair to say that the government was
unwilling to tackle poor governance at the OCI. Today, we learned that the
Sports Council were advised to treat the OCI with kid gloves. This contributed
to the culture we now know existed at the OCI where the President, Mr Hickey,
had free reign to run the organisation as he pleased, without a shred of
outside oversight from the governing body.”